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A selection of writings, published between 1911 and 1998, on the subject of blues music. There are contributions by folklorists, anthropologists, sociologists, literary artists, musicians, critics and aficionados, including Richard Alan Waterman, Alan Lomax and James Baldwin.Read more...

Defining the Blues --
Africa and the Blues --
African Influence on the Music of the Americas / Richard Alan Waterman --
From "Blues: The Conflict of Cultures" / Janheinz Jahn --
Song Structure and Social Structure / Alan Lomax --
African Influence on the Blues / Paul Oliver --
Africa and the Blues / David Evans --
Echoes of the Jungle? / Paul Oliver --
Before and Alongside the Blues --
From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself / Frederick Douglass --
Slave and Post-Slave / LeRoi Jones --
From "Primitive Blues and Primitive Jazz" / LeRoi Jones --
Do the Bombashay: Dance Songs and Routines / Paul Oliver --
From "Folk and Popular Blues" / David Evans --
Folklore and the Blues --
Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes / Howard W. Odum --
Double Meaning in the Popular Negro Blues / Guy B. Johnson --
I Got the Blues / Alan Lomax --
The Singer and the Bluesman: Formulations of Personality in the Lyrics of the Blues / Dennis Jarrett --
Oral Formulas in the Country Blues / John Barnie --
The Blues and Religion --
From "My Adventures as a Social Poet" / Langston Hughes --
From "Role and Response" / Charles Keil --
The Blues as a Secular Religion / Rod Gruver --
The Blues: A Secular Spiritual / James H. Cone --
The Police and the Church / Paul Garon --
Style --
The Blues Harp, Parts One and Two / Lawrence Hoffman --
January, 1925 / Edward Brooks --
From "The Greening of the Delta Blues" / Stephen Calt, Gayle Dean Wardlow.

Responsibility:

edited by Steven C. Tracy.

Reviews

Editorial reviews

Publisher Synopsis

An essential compendium for the music lover. Enriched by Tracy's thoughtful prefaces, these writings on blues gather a century's worth of insights into this music that, more than any other, represents the human condition in the modern world. A celebration and a triumph.--Jeff Todd Titon, author of Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural AnalysisRead more...